Leonardo

“ Now he and Francesco ate a frugal supper of bread, chestnuts, dried cherries, cheese, a flask of the golden Orvieto wine. They were still silent. Francesco glanced at his master from time to time. Leonardo's hair was silvered and thin, his forehead lined, his deep-set eyes were still luminous and thoughtful, but weary. Age had set its effacing finger on the beauty of every feature. It was the face of an enfeebled, patient Titan. ”

“ The fame of Leonardo had gone before him, and he was to model a colossal statue of Francesco, the first Duke of Milan. As for Leonardo himself, he came not as an artist at all, or careful of the fame of one; but as a player on the harp, a strange harp of silver of his own construction, shaped in some curious likeness to a horse's skull. The capricious spirit of Ludovico was susceptible also of the charm of music, and Leonardo's nature had a kind of spell in it. Fascination is always the word descriptive of him. ”

“ It is difficult for the unpractised eye to-day to form any idea of its original beauty. Leonardo has here painted this worldly-minded woman—her portrait is much more famous than she herself ever was—with a marvellous charm and suavity, a finesse of expression never reached before and hardly ever equalled since. Contrast the head of the Christ at Milan, Leonardo's conception of divinity expressed in perfect humanity, with the subtle and sphinx-like smile of this languorous creature. ”

“ Leonardo would have made a drawing of him, would have delighted in the superb limbs and wide deep chest, the big, broad, heavy, wrinkled head, with its massive, low-hanging jaw, its upturned, flat, black nose, its silky ears, like the petals of a rose, and those dark, lovely eyes, in which, when he was at rest, a profound melancholy floated. ”

“ Leonardo stood watching the wild scene, noting every detail, his mind preoccupied. The fiery glow, the voices of the crowd, the pealing of the bells, the boom of the guns, all brought back his discovery. Imagination pictured the waves of sound, the waves of light swelling tranquilly, circling outwards like the ripple on water where a stone has fallen, intersecting each other without mingling or confusion, each keeping its own centre in the point of its origin. ”

“ Leonardo here refers to the Koran:
In the name of the most merciful God.—When the earth shall be shaken by an earthquake; and the earth shall cast forth her burdens; and a man shall say, what aileth her? On that day the earth shall declare her tidings, for that thy Lord will inspire her. On that day men shall go forward in distinct classes, that they may behold their works. And whoever shall have wrought good of the weight of an ant, shall behold the same. And whoever shall have wrought evil of the weight of an ant, shall behold the same. ”

“ In the great stillness Francesco could hear the beating of his friend's iron heart; timidly he would raise his eyes to the Master. The sun shining athwart the branches lit up his long curling hair, flowing beard, and overhanging brows, and surrounded his head with a halo: he seemed like Pan himself who listens to the growing of the grass, the murmuring of spring below the 291 earth, the mystical forces of awakening life. To Leonardo all things lived. The world was one great body, like the body of man, who himself is a little world. ”

“ Has such a smile ever really hovered on human lips, or was it caught from the face of that mocking sphinx who forever guards the Palace of the Beautiful?
Painter of the mysterious, the ineffable, the twilight, Leonardo's pictures may be compared to music in a minor key. Time, which has robbed other ancient paintings of half their charm, has but added charm to his, by deepening- the shadows in which the imagination loves to wander—shadows like veils, which half dissolve to show the vision of a secret thought; colors that are dead, like the colors of things in moonlight. ”

“ No man was ever more human, more lovable, or more fascinating than this same Leonardo da Vinci. He was witty, graceful, polished. His bodily strength was so great that he could bend an iron horseshoe like lead. His physical beauty was flawless,—the beauty of an Apollo. Great painter that he was, painting was but one among his splendid gifts. ...
His ideal, though it had all the purity, all the grace and perfection, of the antique, is in sentiment wholly modern. He invented, or rather he discovered in nature, a beauty as perfect as was the beauty of Greece, and yet which has no link with it. ”

“ Remarkable as a thinker alone, he preferred to enlist thought in the service of art, and make art the handmaid of beauty. Leonardo saw the world not as it is, but as he himself was. He viewed it through the atmosphere of beauty which filled his mind, and tinged its shadows with the mystery of his nature. To all this, his birthright as a painter, a different element was added. A keen desire for knowledge, guiding his action in life, spurred him onward. Conscious of this dominant impulse, he has fancifully described himself in a Platonic allegory. ”

“ Suddenly Leonardo snatched up a pencil and drew it across a page of figures so violently that it broke. Then he looked round, saw his pupil, rose and tottered towards him.
'I told you, Francesco,' he said quickly and bitterly, 'that I should soon make an end. Now I have finished. So have no fear, I shall not work any more. 'Tis enough. I have grown old and dull; more dull than Astro. I know nothing at all. What I have known I forget. Is it for me to think of wings? To the devil even with the wings!'
And seizing his papers furiously he tore and trampled them. ”

“ You and I, Messer Leonardo, are of one mind in this matter; and at the day's end we shall cry "Victory!" whether God exist or no. Two and two will always make four. Viva la Scienza! and long live logic!'
The streets were crowded, and on all faces was that air of curiosity and happy expectation which Leonardo had already remarked in Giovanni. The press was greatest in the Via de' Calzaioli before the Orsanmichele, where was a bronze statue by Andrea Verrocchio:—the apostle Thomas thrusting his fingers into the wounds of his Lord. ”

“ Going to the window she raised the cup as if about to pour a libation; the rosy wine, like warm blood, gave life to the figures of the naked Mænads on the transparent cup.
'There was a time, Giovanni,' she said, 'when I fancied that your Master Leonardo possessed the great secret, for his face is as that of an Olympian god, blended with a Titan. But now I see he aims, but he does not attain; seeks and finds not; knows, but understands not. He is the precursor of him who shall come after him, who is greater than he. ”

“ But before Titian, before Raphael, before Michelangelo, Leonardo reflected the rationalism and the mystery, the subtlety and the philosophical speculation, of the age. To find in his work only the individual thought of genius would be to mistake, perhaps, its most important side; for the expression of his mind, both by its brilliancy and its limitations, is typical of the spirit of his time. The Italian Renaissance was reflected in him as rarely a period has been expressed in the life-work of a single man. ”

“ The Doctor, in noticing them, says: "I expected to see little more than such designs in anatomy as might be useful to the painter in his own profession; but I saw, and, indeed, with astonishment, that Leonardo had been a general and a deep student. When I consider what pains he has taken upon every part of the body, the superiority of his universal genius, his particular excellence in mechanics and hydraulics, and the attention with which such a man would examine and see objects which he was to draw, I am fully persuaded that Leonardo was the best anatomist at that time in the world." ”

“ After Michael Angelo and Raphael, there is no doubt that Leonardo da Vinci, and Correggio, are the two painters, in modern times, who have carried historical expression to the highest ideal perfection; and yet it is equally certain that their heads are carefully copied from faces and expressions in nature. Leonardo excelled principally in his women and children. We find, in his female heads, a peculiar charm of expression; a character of natural sweetness and tender playfulness, mixed up with the pride of conscious intellect, and the graceful reserve of personal dignity. ”

“ As an echo is the reproduction of a sound, the reflection in a mirror is an echo of light. There is but one mechanical law in all the phenomena of physical force; there is but one will; and this will is thy justice, O Prime Mover! the angle of incidence must be equal to the angle of reflection.'
His face pale, his eyes burning with enthusiasm, Leonardo felt that once again, and this time more certainly than before, he was about to sound an abyss into which no man had looked before. ”

“ It was Leonardo's pupil, Marco d'Oggione.
'May the Lord send you an ill Easter!' he shouted; 'Rascal, I will set my heels upon your throat!'
'What coil is this, Marco?' asked Leonardo.
'I pray you listen, Master. This same young rogue has filched my silver buckles; ten florins each did they cost me! One he has gambled away at his dice; the other I have found in his stocking. I did but pull him by the hair, and now, son of the devil that he is, he hath bitten my finger to the bone.'
And he would again have attacked the little lad by his curls had not Leonardo rescued him. ”

“ Leonardo was in all things so highly favoured by nature, that to whatever he turned his thoughts, mind, and spirit, he gave proof in all of such admirable power and perfection, that whatever he did bore an impress of harmony, truthfulness, goodness, sweetness and grace, wherein no other man could ever equal him. ”

“ To rightly understand the essential characteristics of Leonardo's achievements it is necessary to regard him as a scientist quite as much as an artist, as a philosopher no less than a painter, and as a draughtsman rather than a colourist. There is hardly a branch of human learning to which he did not at one time or another give his eager attention, and he was engrossed in turn by the study of architecture—the foundation-stone of all true art—sculpture, mathematics, engineering and music. ”

“ With him the Child is always a child, acting like a child. In a drawing in the British Museum he clutches a protesting cat in his chubby arms, while the mother smiles—the eternal, personal smile of Leonardo that haunted him, as it fascinates us. In another drawing the Child is dipping a chubby hand into a bowl of porridge, and again the Mother smiles—the enigmatic, persisting smile of Leonardo. There are no fewer than twenty-seven drawings of animals on one sheet at Windsor. The majority are cats, but in some instance his imagination has invented a hybrid animal to which no name can be given. ”

“ Meantime, Andrea Salaino had begun to tune the viol; another musician, one Atalante, whom Leonardo had known at the Milanese court, brought the silver lyre, shaped like a horse's head, which the artist had invented.
The best musicians, singers, story-tellers, and poets, the most witty talkers, were invited by Leonardo to his studio to amuse her, and avert the tedium of her sittings. He studied the changeful beauty of her expression as reflects of thought and feeling were awakened by talk, music, poetry, in turn. ”

“ History tells of no man gifted in the same degree as Leonardo was at once for art and science. In art he was an inheritor and perfecter, born in a day of great and many-sided endeavours on which he put the crown, surpassing both predecessors and contemporaries. In science, on the other hand, he was a pioneer, working wholly for the future, and in great part alone. That the two stupendous gifts should in some degree neutralize each other was inevitable. No imaginable strength of any single man would have sufficed to carry out a hundredth part of what Leonardo essayed. ”

“ Be that as it may, this drawing is a striking example of how, in the hands of a master, the most profuse and detailed decoration can be made subservient to the main theme. The eye follows with delight the exquisite imaginative drawing in armour and helm. Nothing is insistent; nothing is superfluous. Every quaint and curious detail leads up to the firm contour of the face. Leonardo saw the theme as a whole, and the decorator's ingenuity has throughout remained subservient to the artist's vision. ”

“ In this portrait of Leonardo’s, on the contrary, there is so pleasing an expression, and a smile so sweet, that while looking at it one thinks it rather divine than human, and it has ever been esteemed a wonderful work, since life itself could exhibit no other appearance. ”

“ Leonardo walked on, and presently he saw a woman, dressed in rags, kneeling before a miserable half-ruined hovel, and stretching out thin bare arms to the passers-by.
'Help; Help! Help!' she cried incessantly.
Corbolo the shoemaker, running up, asked what ailed her.
'My baby! My baby! He was sleeping, so pretty in his little bed! He has fallen through the floor! Perhaps he is still alive! Oh, save him! Try and save him! ”

“ Science gives men stones for bread, and, verily, if you look at those who follow the teaching of this world, you will find in them that even their hearts are become as stones.'
'Who knows little, loves little. Great love is the daughter of great knowledge!' had said Leonardo da Vinci.
Only now did Giovanni realise the profundity of these words, as he listened to the anathema of the monk against knowledge and art, and remembered the wise reasonings of Leonardo, the calm of his countenance, his cold look, his wise and enchanting smile. ”